Statistics on Local Stop Smoking Services in England, April 2024 to December 2024 (Q3)

Local Stop Smoking Services were first set up in 1999/2000 with the aim of reducing health inequalities and improving health among local populations.

Services were rolled out across England from 2000/2001 and provide free, tailored support to all smokers wishing to stop, offering a combination of recommended stop smoking aids and behavioural support.

The Local Stop Smoking Services Quarterly Return is used to monitor the delivery of Local Stop Smoking Services, and NHS England are responsible for collecting and publishing data submitted by local authorities (LAs). 

The report is published on the NHS England website.

This data quality statement aims to provide users with an evidence based assessment of the quality of the statistical output included in this publication. 

It reports against those of the 9 European Statistical System (ESS) quality dimensions and principles¹ appropriate to this output. In doing so, this meets NHS England’s obligation to comply with the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) Code of Practice for Statistics², and the following principles in particular:

• Trustworthiness pillar, principle 6 (Data governance) which states “Organisations should look after people’s information securely and manage data in ways that are consistent with relevant legislation and serve the public good.”
• Quality pillar, principle 3 (Assured Quality) which states “Producers of statistics and data should explain clearly how they assure themselves that statistics and data are accurate, reliable, coherent and timely.”
• Value pillar, principle 1 (Relevance to Users) which states “Users of statistics and data should be at the centre of statistical production; their needs should be understood, their views sought and acted upon, and their use of statistics supported.”
• Value pillar, principle 2 (Accessibility) which states “Statistics and data should be equally available to all, not given to some people before others. They should be published at a sufficient level of detail and remain publicly available.”

This dimension covers the degree to which the statistical product meets user needs in both coverage and content.

Data are collected and reported on a quarterly basis. Data submitted in quarters 1 to 3 is provisional but all data submitted in quarter 4 is final for that financial year.

For each LA aggregated quarterly data are collected for the following:

1. Number of people setting a quit date
2. Number of successful quitters (self-reported)³
3. Number of successful quitters (self-reported) where non-smoking status confirmed by CO validation⁴
4. Number of unsuccessful quitters (self-reported).
5. Number not known/lost to follow up.

Additional information is collected on each quitter including demographic data (e.g. gender identity, age, ethnic category and socio-economic group) and treatment data (e.g. pharmacotherapy, intervention setting and intervention type).

Collecting this information:

• Enables monitoring of performance and identification of best practice.
• Helps LAs identify which treatment settings, pharmacotherapies and intervention types are consistently getting the best results.
• Helps inform the person making the stop smoking attempt which settings are available to them in that area and the relative success rate of these.
• Assists regions in monitoring the performance of their LAs more effectively.

This dimension covers, with respect to the statistics, their proximity between an estimate and the unknown true value.

Validation of Local Stop Smoking Service Data

NHS England is responsible for the collection and validation of the data received from LAs. The validation process can be found in the technical appendices accompanying this publication. Responses from LAs to queries raised following the validation process (exception reasons) can be found in Table 4.3c.

Treatment of missing data
National and regional totals from 2016/17 onwards have not been adjusted to estimate for those LAs who did not provide any data or only provided data for some quarters. Therefore, these totals are underestimates and not directly comparable with previous years. Table 4.3b provides further information on which LAs have not provided data for this financial year.

Estimated data has been used to calculate national and regional totals in the Q4 reports for 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 when only Bradford LA did not provide data during this period. Since then several more LAs have stopped providing data and some of these had changed provision such as concentrating on pregnant women making estimation more complex and less accurate.

Smoking prevalence figures

The denominator for rates per 100,000 smokers in Tables 1.3, 2.1, and 2.2 have been calculated by applying smoking prevalence figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Population Survey (APS) to mid-year population estimates of 16 year olds and over. Data collection issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic mean that the latest available APS data for this publication is 2019 (for further information, see Smoking prevalence in the UK and the impact of data collection changes: 2020).

Where possible, ONS mid-year population estimates from the relevant financial year are used (e.g. mid-2017 for 2017/18 rates). However, at the time of producing this publication, the latest available ONS mid-year population estimates are for 2020.

Timeliness refers to the time gap between publication and the reference period. Punctuality refers to the gap between planned and actual publication dates.

The Stop Smoking Services data is submitted by providers at least 42 days after the end of each financial quarter. This is to account for the lost to follow-up period (see Appendix A: Data definitions). The publication of data follows this, with a time lag for data processing, analysis, and quality assurance.

Coherence is the degree to which data which have been derived from different sources or methods but refer to the same topic are similar. Comparability is the degree to which data can be compared over time and domain.

There are no known alternative sources of data on which to compare these results.

Comparable data on the number of people setting a quit date and successful quitters, by age, gender identity, ethnicity, and among pregnant women, has been collected and published since the introduction of Local Stop Smoking Services in 1999/2000. NHS England (previously NHS Digital) has published these data since 2005; earlier reports are available from the Department of Health and Social Care.

In 2024/2025, after consultation with DHSC, several changes were made to the publication. These are detailed in the next few paragraphs. Please see also the methodological change notice and the data model and dictionary change request.

Gender identity: New options were added for gender identity, with the addition of “Non-binary”, “Other”, and “Not stated”. Due to small numbers of respondents selecting “Non-binary” or “Other”, these two categories were combined. Male and female categories are unchanged, and data for these two groups is comparable to previous years. However, prior to 2024/2025, there was no option to not select male or female, and therefore there may have been a small number of non-binary or other respondents in these groups.

Referrals: The numbers of people referred is a new addition from 2024/2025. This captures the number of people who were referred to the service in each quarter. It is not comparable to the number of smokers setting a quit date, as it is possible that a person is referred in one quarter but does not set a quit date until the following quarter. This data is collected for each gender identity and age group, and for pregnant smokers. This data has not been captured before 2024/2025 and will therefore only be comparable with future publications.

Sexual orientation: This is a new category and has not been captured prior to 2024/2025. It is not required for Local Authorities to capture this data. Therefore, care should be taken when comparing Local Authorities or Regions. Due to low response rates, this data is published annually only.

Swap to stop: This is a new category and refers to the number of smokers who were provided with a vape by the Stop Smoking Service as part of their quit attempt. This data has not been captured before 2024/2025 and will therefore only be comparable with future publications.

Stop smoking aid: The term “pharmacology” has been replaced by “stop smoking aid”. This is to aid understanding, though the definition remains the same. However, there have been changes to the categories included within the stop smoking aid section, with some additional categories and some retired categories. Retired categories will no longer be reported. Other categories have changed in wording only.

The following are new categories:

• “Used nicotine vapes only”,
• “Used cytisine only”,
• “Used nicotine vapes and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) at the same time”,
• “Used other nicotine containing products e.g., non-tobacco nicotine pouches”,
• “Used any other combination of stop smoking aids”.

The following categories have been retired:

• “Switched between any or all of the following during a single quit attempt but did not use them at the same time: NRT, varenicline, bupropion (Zyban)”,
• “Used a licensed medication (NRT, varenicline, bupropion (Zyban)) at the same time as an unlicensed nicotine containing product (such as unlicensed electronic cigarettes) at any time during their quit attempt”,
• “Using either a licensed medication (NRT, varenicline, bupropion (Zyban)) or an unlicensed nicotine containing product (such as unlicensed electronic cigarettes) and then switched to the other during a single quit attempt and did not use them at the same time”,
• “Only used unlicensed nicotine containing products (such as unlicensed electronic cigarettes) and no licensed medication during their quit attempt”.

The following categories are unchanged, or have changed in phrasing only:

• “Used two or more forms of NRT at the same time at any time” (previously “using two or more forms of licensed NRT at the same time, at any time during their quit attempt”),
• “Used one form of NRT only” (previously “using one form of licensed NRT at a time, at any point during their quit attempt”),
• “Used varenicline only”,
• “Used bupropion only”,
• “Did not use any form of stop smoking treatment” (previously “did not receive or use any form of stop smoking medication of unlicensed nicotine containing product (such as electronic cigarettes) at any point during their quit attempt”),
• “Treatment option was not recorded”.

Intervention type: There have been changes to the categories included, with additional categories and retired categories that will no longer be reported on. There remains the option for submitters to enter “other” categories.

The following are new categories:

• “One to one multi-session support in person only”,
• “One to one multi-session telephone support only”,
• “One to one multi-session support via remote video link/online only”,
• “Group support in person only (structured, including closed groups, couple/family group, open rolling group)”,
• “Group support via remote video link/online (structured, including closed groups, couple/family group, open rolling group)”,
• “Combination of in person and telephone or remote/on-line support (multi-session”,
• “Digital support via stop smoking mobile application alone”,
• “Combination of any one-to-one support and digital support via a mobile application (multi-session)”.

The following categories have been retired:

• “Number who attended closed groups (structured, multi-session group courses with pre-arranged start and finish dates and a pre-booked client group)”,
• “Number who attended open groups (sometimes called rolling groups) that have fluctuating membership and are ongoing”,
• “Number who attended drop-in clinics (multi-session support)”,
• “Number who attended one-to-ones (structured, multi-session support)”,
• “Number who attended family/couple’s groups (structured, multi-session support for small family groups or couples)”,
• “Number dealt with through telephone support sessions”.

National and regional totals from 2016/17 onwards have not been adjusted to estimate for those LAs who did not provide any data or only provided data for some quarters. Therefore, these totals are underestimates and not directly comparable with previous years.

From 2014/15 amendments were made to data requirements on the monitoring return for pharmacotherapy treatment received (part 1F); Intervention setting (part 1H) and financial information on smoking cessation services (part 2A) and this will affect comparisons over time and means these data will not be comparable with previous years.

Financial data may not be returned by LAs on a comparable basis and therefore caution should be exercised when making local level comparisons.

Data on stop smoking services in Scotland
Data on stop smoking services in Wales

Accessibility is the ease with which users are able to access the data, also reflecting the format in which the data are available and the availability of supporting information. Clarity refers to the quality and sufficiency of the metadata, illustrations and accompanying advice.

This report is published on the NHS England website and is available free of charge with accompanying tables (in Excel (.xls) and Comma Separated Values (.csv) format).

This dimension describes the extent to which different aspects of quality are balanced against each other.

People making multiple quit attempts will be counted multiple times. This is a necessary trade-off due to the absence of NHS number in the collection.

This dimension covers the processes for finding out about users and uses and their views on the statistical products.

This report was also part of a wider consultation on all NHS England (previously NHS Digital) publications in 2016. There were proposals for changes to this report in sections A10 and C3.

In response to user feedback gathered from this consultation the collection has continued on a quarterly basis, and this report has now been reformatted with extensive written content being replaced by headline results and associated graphics. These presentation techniques are in line with other reports already being produced by NHS England which have received positive feedback from users.

Changes to the monitoring collection form have already taken place as a result of feedback from LAs, as detailed in the Comparability and Coherence section.

NHS England is keen to gain a better understanding of the users of this publication and of their needs; feedback is welcome and may be sent in an email to [email protected]. Information on the Users and Uses of the report are included in the appendices that accompany the main report.

This dimension describes the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of the statistical output.

The cost incurred by data providers to collect and submit stop smoking services data was assessed in 2016 and was estimated to be £143,000.

NHS England (previously NHS Digital) costs incurred in the collection and publication of the data were estimated at the same time to be around £22,000.

The procedures and policy used to ensure sound confidentiality, security and transparent practices.

This publication is subject to an NHS England risk assessment prior to issue. Data have not been suppressed as these data are non-disclosive. The only reason suppression is applied is for accuracy purposes. Specifically, the quit rates are suppressed if the denominator is between 1 and 20 as agreed at NHS England’s (previously NHS Digital) Disclosure Control Panel on 22 September 2015.